data corruption
a03 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67028905
fandom: ava: alan becker's animation vs animator
characters: the chosen one, the second coming, blue, red, green, and yellow
summary:
Ever since the fiasco with Rocket Corp., Chosen had unwillingly adopted recurring glitches and they have yet to see it go away for longer than an hour. They're usually just short disruptions, colour duplicating him in flashes that are over in a blink, smooth lines turning into rough ones, or small pixels of himself ripping away and quickly snapping back.
Yeah, usually is the keyword there.
or
the colour gang witness the chosen one's glitching on a really bad day and asks too many questions
tags: emotional hurt/comfort, invasion of privacy (asking too much), hollowhead siblings
read below:
The six of them were all seated around a Minecraft dining table, with Chosen and Second up at the head and the colour gang assembled around the sides. Second was telling Chosen about their latest misadventures in Minecraft and Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue happily piped up with their own words often. It made for a chaotic retelling, with attempts to speak over one another on what ‘really’ happened, et cetera.
Chosen was listening attentively though, asking questions occasionally about what this-or-that was. They all were happy to take the occasional side-tangent to explain mechanics and block origins, making the dinner long and everyone's pace of eating quite leisurely.
The color gang has offered on numerous occasions to teach Chosen all about Minecraft in hopes of him playing with them, and while he's thus far denied actually picking up the block or entering a portal, he was very lenient in hearing them out. Whether this was him being patient with them concerning their interests or an actual interest in playing the game when he finally felt comfortable to, was unclear.
None of them would fault him for distrusting PC games, as it had taken considerable convincing to get him to accept making regular visits to ALANSPC in the first place.
They all kind of hoped to convince him to join them sooner rather than later.
As the story wound to a close with smattering chuckles and blameless finger-pointing, the conversation came to a near halt, five of them quieted with a food coma from Blue’s delicious cooking.
Chosen was still slowly picking at his plate, which was unusual behaviour from him. It had earned a few questions about whether he liked it or not, to which he had insisted that it was as delicious as anything else Blue has ever served him.
Him finishing eating last only brought attention to how he kept getting interrupted by various glitches warping across his body. They’d crawl up his arm and he’d pause until it passed, lest he drop his fork. It wasn’t long after that that the others noticed how frequently Chosen was glitching that day.
Ever since the fiasco with Rocket Corp., Chosen had unwillingly adopted recurring glitches and they have yet to see it go away for longer than an hour. They're usually just short disruptions, colour duplicating him in flashes that are over in a blink, smooth lines turning into rough ones, or small pixels of himself ripping away and quickly snapping back.
It was almost jarring to watch at times, but they all came to accept it. Chosen was just glitchy now, like a TV whose screen was starting to corrupt. Not enough to affect the audio or make the video unwatchable, it was just something to work around.
None of them could tell whether the glitching was hurting Chosen or not. He never seemed to react to it; it didn't affect his gait (although he did have a limp and that was something else Chosen refused to ever talk about), and it didn't seem to affect his strength or his speed. The glitching did, however, interfere with his powers at times. It didn't happen often and when it did, Chosen recovered quickly enough they weren't too worried.
The five of them had all been requested a while ago by Chosen to just ignore his glitching altogether. They initially asked the hollowhead all sorts of things, but when faced with continual dismissals, they eventually conceded with questions unanswered.
Today, Chosen couldn't seem to go a minute without glitching. Each glitch was stronger and lasted longer than usual.
He's glitching bad, and they're trying really hard to give him his space. They let the conversation lull until he’s finished, letting him get through it on his own, and then they all resume speaking.
But it just kept coming back, and they started getting longer, and then he was glitching out for nearly a whole minute at a time as the evening went on and dessert came and went. His form was fuzzing and pixleating rapidly and intensely, and he’d hit the table or knocked into his glass or plate several times with involuntary jerky movements. He was clearly in distress over it, panting whenever it stopped.
It was Blue, who finally broke the metaphorical silence, “Chosen?”
“Hmm?” Chosen looked over with a red afterimage shadowing him.
“Are you…” Blue hesitated, but persevered, “Are you alright?”
His response was an intense stare, in which Chosen had another glitch strike him, black and white noise filling his lines and a buzzing noise ringing in the room.
Second put his hand down heavily onto the table, “Blue! We aren’t supposed to-”
Blue ignored Seconds' protest, his eyes on Chosen. “We-we’re all just a little concerned,” they said while waving a hand in the direction of Red, Green and Yellow, who all shared the same worried expression Blue had. “You don’t normally glitch this frequently,” Blue fiddled with their hands to refrain from putting a hand on Chosen’s shoulder.
“I asked you not to ask about this,” Chosen protested, visibly pulling into himself.
After giving Blue a stern look, Second reached out to put a hand on Chosen’s arm, “You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to, it’s okay.”
Chosen continued to shrink back, glitching fiercely and refusing to look in the others’ direction.
“Sorry, Sec,” Green piped up, dropping an elbow onto the table and gestured loosely to their guest, “But this has clearly gotten worse since the last time he’s been here. Isn’t that worth asking about?”
Second looked almost betrayed for a moment, glancing between his brother and his friends, “If Chosen doesn’t think he needs to-”
“It’s not gotten worse,” Chosen interrupted. His voice was rough, and hesitant. He’s holding onto himself like it could withhold the glitching, but the white noise crept up his arms anyway. “It just acts up every so often, it’s fine.”
The others stare at him, stunned at the revelation. Despite it being by a forced hand, this is the most Chosen has ever told them about his condition.
Yellow tapped the table repeatedly, a question visibly on his tongue. He glanced at the others, biting his lip and asking, “What’s it triggered by?”
Chosen’s head snapped in Yellow’s direction so fast that Yellow flinched back, ducking his head down with an instinctive, “Sorry.”
The hollowhead’s hands clenched hard into his clothes, but whatever retort he was about to say was cut off by a violent glitch, distorting Chosen into several layers of colours and pixels. Chosen flinched, hunching over until it passed. He rested his head on the table, taking a greedy gasp as though he’d been holding his breath. The glitching hit him again a second later.
“See? This is exactly what I meant,” Green pointed.
“Are we sure it doesn’t hurt him?” Red asked, hugging himself.
Chosen suddenly got to his feet, bracing himself on the table and effectively silencing the room with the motion. He glitched hard, neon colours clinging to him as he stumbled towards the doorway with not a word.
“Wait!” Second burst to his feet, easily catching up to a teetering Chosen and stopping him in his tracks. Holding onto Chosen’s arms, Second begged, “Please don’t go.”
“I don’t want-” Chosen glitched again, and Second felt him press into his arms, like it was hard to keep himself upright through the attack. The sensation of it felt weird at Second’s fingertips, like touching a static-filled screen. He helped Chosen into the nearest seat, nodding at Red who’d jumped up to help.
Second waited until his brother steadied before speaking, “Won’t you stay for a little longer?” He glanced at his friends, and pointed at them, saying, “We won’t ask about it again.”
The others nodded, and Red even mimed zipping his mouth shut to drive the point home.
“Please,” he pleaded, “Just until this calms down?” Second offered an open palm to Chosen, an invitation.
Chosen glanced at each of them, his expression guarded aside from his clear exhaustion. He sighed, and accepted Second’s hand, nodding.
Second smiled, and wrapped his free arm around Chosen in a hug. “Thank you,” the younger stick whispered. He held tight even after he felt Chosen return the hug hesitantly. Chosen seemed to melt into it after another glitch tore through him, digging his hands into the back of Second’s shirt in a tight grip.
Second let the hug stand as long as he could, giving one final squeeze before letting go. Stepping back to address his friends, he put his hands on his hips, taking on what the others liked to call his ‘bossy’ tone of voice, “Alright! Operation: Sleepover is a go!”
“What-?”
“YES!” Red shouted, pumping his arms in the air before running out of the room.
“Oh!” Yellow sounded excited, “I’ll get my laptop!” He ran off, pulling his phone out, looking for their ‘movies to ask if Chosen’s seen them’ list that they made for exactly this purpose.
“I call building his room,” Green yelled, raising a hand before following after the other two.
Blue sputtered, “I thought I was-!” They huffed and glanced back to Second and a baffled Chosen.
“Go,” Second waved them off.
Blue lingered at the doorway to say, “We’re sorry for prying, Chosen.”
Chosen gave a single slow nod to the cyan stick figure, who returned it with a small smile, then disappeared around the corner.
“‘Operation: Sleepover’?” Chosen glanced at Second, amusement in his voice.
He chuckled lightly, “We’ve been kinda wanting you to stay over for a long time,” he scratched his chin nervously. Maybe he shouldn’t have used the name out loud, oops.
His brother's lighthearted chuckle was cut off as he was wracked by another rough glitch as Red reentered the room, burdened by a large, heavy grey blanket.
Second smiled instantly, “That’s a great idea, Red!”
Red had a shy smile on his face as he came closer and draped it gently over Chosen’s shoulders, “I thought it might help.”
Surprised by the weight, Chosen grasped at the edges and pulled it closer, hunching under its folds, “What’s this?”
“It’s a weighted blanket, for comfort! It helps when you’re anxious or stressed,” Red played with his hands, clearly nervous.
Chosen’s face pinched, and he started to push the blanket off. A desperate tone was in his voice as he said, “No, no, I- I’m not-”
Second reached over and readjusted it back in place. “You don’t need to tell us anything, Chosen. Sometimes it’s just nice to cuddle in a good blanket, right?” Second glanced at Red, searching for an agreement.
Red happily obliged, “Right!”
Chosen hung his head, almost in shame. He buried himself further into the blanket, the next string of glitching harder to spot due to the sheer size of the blanket wrapping around him. “...yeah,” he agreed with a whisper.
Red was quick to run off again, citing the blankets and pillows he had to hunt down for the ultimate pillow fort they needed for their movie-watching later.
Second let the two of them linger in silence for a minute more before he sat down on the chair next to Chosen. The other glitched again, Chosen appearing to turn red, then blue, then back to black.
Second softened his voice as he spoke, keeping his eyes over on the doorway rather than on his brother, “I don’t want to force you into anything, you deserve to be able to tell us when you’re ready; but I want you to know I’m here to help, and so are the others. We all care about you.”
Second could feel Chosen’s eyes on him, burning and curious all the same. The silence stretched on, and he swore he could hear Chosen’s heavy swallow.
When he heard Chosen open his mouth to speak, he had to shove down the hope that Chosen would tell him the truth. About the glitching, about the limp, about who The Dark Lord was, about what his relationship with Alan was, anything. But Second had to be patient, and believe that Chosen would find his place here by his side eventually. He believed in his brother.
“Thank you,” Chosen whispers.
Second looked over, seeing a soft smile on Chosen’s face. He gave a large one in return, and jumped back to his feet, offering a hand back to his brother, “C’mon, lets go pick out a movie to watch!”
With less hesitation than earlier, Chosen unfolded enough from the blanket to latch onto Second’s open hand.